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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Man Who Beat Son To Death Over Grades Has 1 Year Jail Sentence Rejected By UAE Court

An Emirati man beat his 12-year-old son so severely with a cane and an electrical chord the child died. Apparently, papa was unhappy with the boy's school grades. The mother found the bloody, unconscious boy and drove him to the hospital, but the child was dead on arrival.

Under sharia law this is how the judicial process went down for the accused:

Parents can't be sentenced to death under sharia, so that was ruled out. Of course, the death sentence is perfectly fine for adulterers, blasphemers, apostates and homosexuals. But beating someone to death? 15 years max. However, this dad lucked out. The 'beating' charge was changed to premeditated murder.

Now this is where it gets interesting. There's that 'blood money' clause under sharia law, whereby relatives can receive money and a reduced sentence as retribution.

As the boy’s heirs, the father’s parents, waived their rights to a death sentence, R M was sentenced to three years in jail and a blood money settlement of Dh200,000.His sentence was later reduced by the appeals court to one year, as the boy’s mother also waived her right to blood money.On Wednesday, the court of cassation ruled that the heirs should not have been consulted in this case.The law states that a father cannot be charged with premeditated murder unless he confesses, which R M did not, or if it was a straightforward murder act.In this case, as the tools he used to kill his son were not weapons, it proved it was an attack driven by anger and not planned.

[snip]

Also, the medical report showed there was not a fatal blow from the father, as the boy died from shock caused by the pain of the beating.

So that pre-meditated murder charge? Thrown out, along with the year sentence. So another hearing will be scheduled.